For Healthcare Professionals

The Healthcare Alliance for Regulatory Board Reform (HARBR) is an organization for all healthcare professionals – licensed and unlicensed. Although some of our current members have interest in what boards regard as a quasi-legislative processes (rule making and policy development), most have gathered together to form this organization due to direct, unfair board disciplinary processes which have cost them dearly. Through our group efforts we have become much stronger than we have been as isolated individuals, and we have been able to take effective action. Over the past couple of years (pre-HARBR), many of us have testified before our legislatures and have stopped bad laws from being passed.

HARBR is heavily rooted in Oregon and at this time, our membership consists primarily of Physician’s, Psychologists, and Counselor-Therapists. In Oregon, this means healthcare professionals licensed by the Oregon Medical Board (OMB), the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners (OBPE), and the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors &Therapists (OBLPCT).

We believe that the nature of our make up is no accident. It so happens that each of these healthcare regulatory boards are represented by the same Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney, Senior Assistant Attorney General Warren Foote.

In response to a complaint against SAAG Warren Foote (and others) to the Oregon State Bar signed by 12 individual HARBR members on November 29, 2016, Warren Foote’s attorney, SAAG Stephanie Thompson attempted to suggest that our signers were little more than “sour grapes” complainants who all had a grudge against Foote. The implication was that we were a lot of vigilantes acting out a vendetta. The truth is that, despite deep problems with healthcare regulatory boards in general, Warren Foote is a special problem. We believe in his work with each of the above boards, Warren Foote has violated numerous Rules of Professional Conduct (Ethical Standards) held by the Oregon and American Bar Associations. It is only natural that those professionals he has aggressed gather together to complain to the proper authority.

HARBR’s membership also includes nurses, psychologist associates, and unlicensed healthcare professionals. Inasmuch as unlicensed healthcare professional are actively hunted down and prosecuted by these boards – often unfairly or unlawfully, they share an interest in healthcare regulatory board reform as well.

We have members in others states, including North Carolina, Massachusetts, and California. We are working on a Texas affiliation and welcome healthcare professionals from all states and abroad.

Not all of our members have experienced problems with healthcare regulatory boards directly. Some of our members have learned of the problematic features of board conduct from colleagues. Some of our members are licensed and practicing. Some of our members have been so aggressed by their boards that they are no longer practicing. Some of members are patients or clients who have been impacted by problematic board conduct. Some are friends and family who’ve been impacted, and some of our menbers are professionals who are being aggressed by healthcare regulatory boards at this very moment as you read this.

If you are not already a member of HARBR, we encourage you to become one – to lend us your support, and to recruit as many others as you can so that we can advance our cause.